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February 02, 2006

Faith Grounded in Logic

This post is my submission for the "Faith" edition of the Blog Carnival.

Many atheists reveal that their main obstacle to belief is their revulsion to the concept of faith. Not a revulsion to reasonable, everyday faith (like sitting in a chair and believing it will hold you up), but specifically to faith in an unseen, intelligent creator of the universe.

It's an understandable objection. I'm disgusted with the beliefs of many people in my own church on the subject. Very few who claim to be Christians have any interest in subjecting their beliefs to scrutiny of any kind, and some end up elevating faith to a form of deity all its own. Faith then becomes a force we can utilize to shape our own destinies. Many evangelists (especially the TV kind) would lead you to believe that if you would only have enough faith and "speak positive words into your life" then nothing bad would ever happen to you.

Of course, this philosophy cannot stand up under even the slightest actual examination of Jewish or Christian scripture, but that's of no concern to "Word of Faith" followers. It's the religious equivalent of a get rich quick scheme. "Don't bore me with doctrine. I'm only interested in what makes me feel good about myself. And if I get results, what I believe must be correct."

So this oft held pseudo-Christian concept of faith has admittedly earned much of the distain Christianity as a whole receives from atheists. However, a philosophy cannot logically be judged by the actions and beliefs of those who claim to follow it.

I believe that the faith the Bible calls Christians to have is one based in sound reason, not in unquestioning acceptance.

The more science discovers in the pursuit of truth, the more convincing the evidence for a God becomes. In the past century we've gone from believing that the universe has eternally existed to all but proving that the universe had a definite beginning. Of course, if a creator does exist then this is exactly what one would expect to discover.

Science must deal with what is measurable and observable. This logically includes anything within our universe, and at the same time excludes anything that might exist outside of it. Therefore, any theory about what might exist beyond our scope of observation is pure speculation with no hope of ever being proven through research.

The consequence of this fact is obvious: All theories about what caused the Big Bang that began our universe -- whether it is a god, an extra-dimensional infinite universe generator, a Big Crunch, or even a spaghetti monster -- are inescapably unscientific. Ironically, this unanswerable question is the most profoundly important question in science. In fact, the pursuit of this question looms as the very foundation of science itself.

So how can we approach it? To hold any convictions about the origin of the universe requires faith in that which is unseen and unmeasurable. Since that is the case, only logic -- not evidence -- can guide us to a feasible conclusion.

We know that our universe cannot have always existed. Not only could the cosmos not have passed through an infinite number of moments to reach any specific point in time (i.e. "now"), but the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that the universe would have dispersed all of its energy an eternity ago. Our universe would be cold, dark, and lifeless.

If we say that the Big Bang was preceded by a Big Crunch, that merely begs the question. It's as pointless as theorizing that life on Earth was created by aliens. You are then forced to ask, "Who created the aliens?" A universal cycle of expansion and contraction cannot have been occurring for an infinite length of time for the same reasons I stated in the last paragraph, so we must also rule out this "oscillatory universe" theory.

How about some sort of extra-dimensional "universe generator", churning out an infinite number of possible universes that exist parallel to each other? Okay. I have no problem with that idea. But where did it come from? What created the "universe creator" with such a purpose? Might there just as easily be a "'Universe creator' creator"?

Hopefully you're beginning to see the problem. No matter what natural explanation we invent to explain the origin of the universe, the need for a cause behind the cause always arises. Why?

Here are two things that we know to be true logically:

1) Every event ever observed has had a cause.2) Every decision originates in a mind.

The universe as we know it is the product of a chain of causes. At the beginning of this chain sits an explosion that resulted in the existence of everything we know -- matter, energy, even time itself. By necessity this explosion had to be caused by something, and as I have already demonstrated, it is not logical to assume that this cause was something else of which the same question must be asked. So an uncaused cause must exist at the root of all things. And the only logical uncaused cause must be capable of making the decision to create our universe at a specific, measurable point in time. Therefore, the only logical uncaused cause must be a transcendent intelligence.

If you just experienced a negative knee-jerk reaction to that statement, I urge you to ask yourself why. Is your objection like Einstein's initial objection to the Big Bang; that it sounds too much like the God of Christianity being forced into the realm of science? By no means should we appeal to the miraculous in order to explain away causes we have not yet discovered in our universe, but we are not speaking of a gap in understanding. We are speaking of the event that created understanding, time, physicality, and ultimately our capacity for pondering these things in the first place.

So ask yourself, "Which faith is more reasonable?": Faith that our amazing universe -- full of staggering complexity built upon profound simplicity, with life arising and thriving seemingly in defiance of every natural law -- has a purpose, and that the need for an uncaused cause is inescapable, or faith that the existence of our universe is pure happenstance, a cosmic accident; that every beautiful thing we observe that leaves us awe-stricken is without meaning or value, and that defying all logic and reason our universe burst into existence with no cause whatsoever?

Barring empirical evidence to support either faith, I have to go with the faith that logic leads me to hold.

Comments

As always David, your beliefs are thought out and well expressed. You have the ability to cut subjects free from polity and rhetoric. Its refreshing to read your thoughts and ideas. It helps me overcome my frustration with most of what passes as deep thinking within the conservative church.

I could say that it is perfectly logical to believe that in an alternate universe a person developed the ability to fly under their own power, travelled to the moon, and found a T-shirt lying on a rock that said "SuperPope is God" on the front of it. The T-shirt was naturally occurring...no one made it. So the man returned to earth, and everyone on the planet began to worship me, not knowing who I am.

I COULD say that, but the fact of the matter is, even given an infinite amount of time, some things are impossible, like a naturally occurring T-shirt with an intelligible message printed on the front of it.

Time and chance are not entities. They are measurements. Chance is not a force capable of defying the laws of physics. If something is impossible, time and coin tosses won't change that.

You could take 1,000,000 cells, puncture their membranes, and spill their contents into a beaker. Then you would have EXACTLY the elements you need to create a living cell (which is already an impossible head start). You could repeat this every day for 1,000,000 years. A single living cell will not once arise from the soup you created. The implications of that fact should be obvious.

Because everything in our universe is moving away from order and towards chaos (entropy), not the other way around.

At any rate, my post was about the necessity of a God to explain the origin of the universe, not the origin of life. I don't want this comment field to get too cluttered with red herrings, so let's save that discussion for another day.

Quote:
"And the only logical uncaused cause must be capable of making the decision to create our universe at a specific, measurable point in time."

Does time have any meaning when speaking about that which is outside our universe?

An alarm can make a sound at a certain time without being concious. Assuming that time has meaning in this context, is it possible that this uncaused cause is closer to an alarm rather than an anthropomorphic being?

Quote:
"...with life arising and thriving seemingly in defiance of every natural law."

How, exactly?

Quote:
"that every beautiful thing we observe that leaves us awe-stricken is without meaning or value."

There is a difference between lacking objective meaning/value and lacking any meaning and value. These things could have meaning because we give them meaning, just like words.

Quote:
"
Because everything in our universe is moving away from order and towards chaos (entropy), not the other way around."

Not always. Just look at a tree growing from a tiny seed, is this moving toward chaos or complexity?

"And the only logical uncaused cause must be capable of making the decision to create our universe at a specific, measurable point in time. Therefore, the only logical uncaused cause must be a transcendent intelligence."

Why? Without more support for this supposition, this is just more special pleading for God - demanding a cause for an unintelligent universe generator, but not an intelligent one.

And Seth, SuperPope, you're both screwing your science up. It's not a matter of the components for life suddenly forming cells, there's a lot of intermediate stages in there. See TalkOrigins on abiogenesis:

"http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html"

Also, entropy only need increase when there's no input of energy, which we have from the sun.

You propose that some sort of timed trigger caused the Big Bang? That begs the question. Where'd the timer come from, and how long had it been there?

How life on Earth arose is irrelevant to this post.

There can be no true meaning or value in anything we observe if there is no purpose to the universe itself. If you're an atheist and you believe life has meaning you're appealing to a higher power without intending to. Sure, many atheists are kind, friendly people. But they are only being more considerate than their philosophy requires them to be. You might just as well kill everyone that makes eye contact with you...you'd still be following your beliefs.

You miss the whole point of my argument. It isn't special pleading to theorize that a god exists outside/before our universe. By that definition, any theory about what exists outside our universe -- no matter how scientific you make it sound -- is special pleading as well, since it is impossible to ever provide any evidence for it.

As far as "screwing up my science", I know that there are more stages than I mentioned. But my illustration actually made the conditions much more favorable for life to arise on its own than they really were. But once again, this is off topic.

I know that the Second Law doesn't apply to life on Earth since Earth isn't a closed system. I was referring to my theoretical beaker of cellular matter. Look; if you break an egg, it's not going to come back together. Ever. I wasn't talking about how life persists. We were talking about how life arose. Life as it exists is merely a self-replicating system. But how did the system get started? Entropy still applies when you're referring to molecules "deciding" to organize themselves and create life.

You know as well as I do that science still hasn't answered the question of the origin of life, but ONCE AGAIN this is not the topic of my post.

Your analogy doesn't work; the components of life didn't have 'human' when they were floating around millions of years ago. It just so happened that conditions over millions of years caused the evolution of humans, and alligators, and even furry little chipmunks.

Yeah yeah Chris, I know about faulty science. I was playing along with his analogy.

Quote:
"You propose that some sort of timed trigger caused the Big Bang? That begs the question. Where'd the timer come from, and how long had it been there?"

The timer is the uncaused cause in my explanation, just like God is the uncaused cause in yours. Consequently, it, like God, did not come from anywhere. It doesn't really matter how long the timer had been there, does it? Just like it doesn't matter how long God had been there.

Quote:
"There can be no true meaning or value in anything we observe if there is no purpose to the universe itself."

Why not? And what is this "true meaning"? I was talking about subjective or created meaning.

"If you're an atheist and you believe life has meaning you're appealing to a higher power without intending to."

How so?

I'm not sure what your point is in bringing up moral systems when we were talking about meaning.

Seth, I was throwing you a bone by removing many steps of illogical appeals to chance.

If it helps, pretend the human in my analogy is a "creator" who merely throws all the parts of a cell into a puddle. Even that isn't enough help for life to get started. But hey, I urge you to keep having faith that life arose from nothing for no reason. Keep having faith that one day there will be evidence to support your beliefs.

Can we get back on topic?

Stupid Anonymous, as I spent most of my fairly wordy blog entry explaining, the uncaused cause of the universe must be capable of making a decision, because a non-intelligent thing could not have existed forever and then done something that caused the universe to exist. For example, the singularity which contained all matter that now exists could not have sat inert for any length of time and then exploded. If it were ever going to explode, it would have to explode the instant it existed. This is basic science. Objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.

At any rate, you might just as well have simply said, "I believe in Faith type B". That's fine. But don't pretend you have any more evidence to support it than I do.

I personally admit that I have no clue what started the universe, if the universe had a start at all, so I don't see how I have a different type of faith in this case.

Anyway, I still don't see why you insist on describing events outside of our universe in terms of events happening in chronological order. But even if I accept this assumption, then the uncaused cause does not have to be concious. What if the uncaused cause was something that, by its nature, caused this universe to come into existence at one point, any point, in the infinite time of its own existence. No conciousness required.

I just realize that you already anticipated my arguement when you said in the article "How about some sort of extra-dimensional "universe generator", churning out an infinite number of possible universes that exist parallel to each other?"

You go on to ask what caused this universe generator, but I say that this universe generator may have been the "uncaused cause".

Time may not have any meaning outside the 'universe' and so there is no need for a cause. In fact, this is especially true if a transcendent God created the universe, as being subject to time introduces a limit to Him. The entirety of existence, including the geometry of time and the reality of cause and effect cannot have a beginning as that notion of beginning is only consequent from time itself, a subset of existence.

Stupid Anonymous said: "You go on to ask what caused this universe generator, but I say that this universe generator may have been the 'uncaused cause'."

Then you don't understand my point. I can't think of a better way to explain it. When you fabricate another dimension outside of ours and put more stuff in it like ours and say that something there created our universe, you're begging the question. It is a waste of time. You merely shift the question of origin from our universe to this new one.

What if science showed us that every time a flower blooms in our universe, a big bang is triggered and a new parallel universe is born? Would that explain anything? Not really. If people in that universe knew how they had come into existence they would just have to wonder how our universe came into existence.

The buck has to stop somewhere, and the only logical conclusion is a transcendent, omnipresent intelligence of some kind which does not require any physicality in order to exist and excercise creative power.

Again, the notion of a beginning is moot as your argument is based on the unsound illogic that in reality, time and space are separate with time being somehow transcendent. The geometry of time is only another facet of unified spacetime and its origin itself is tied inextricably to that of space. Without time, the notion of a beginning and a cause is MEANINGLESS. I'm not saying that that means there is no Creator, only that using the requirement of cause as an argument for him is unsound. To say that reality demands a cause simply because it had a beginning presupposes again the same time-bound reality and there we have the same conundrum as the 'universe generator' you so deftly refuted.

Huh. From your previous comment I thought you were agreeing with me and merely saying that time did not apply to God -- since he exists outside of time -- and that He therefore needed no cause.

Are you saying that you do not believe that the big bang occurred? Do you deny that the universe once was not and now is?

I agree that time was created along with matter. But this only proves that the dawn of our universe was also the dawn of time as we know it. It still began, and therefore in keeping with all rules of logic and physics, requires a cause.

I'm saying that whatever beginning there was to physicality, that beginning applies to time as well. And outside the notion of time, no rule of logic or physics can apply to it an antecedent cause. Claiming that a true beginning implies an even earlier action is a contradiction in terms.

If time began, time was caused. The fact that time didn't exist before time began does not free us from the necessity of an uncaused cause. Whatever caused our universe did not exist before time, but instead "outside" of time.

It seems we both believe in a creator, but you seem to be arguing that one is not necessary. Why bother? How can you believe in a creator and not believe him to be necessary? That's self-contradictory.

SuperPope, at some point on this line of thinking you have to say "It just does" in response to why something exists rather than nothing. If it isn't caused to exist then why does your proposed deity exist? It just does. If it isn't caused to exist then why does my proposed uncaused/uncreated universe generator exist? It just does.

What makes your deity more logical than my generator? They both seem at equal footing to me.

You said: "The buck has to stop somewhere, and the only logical conclusion is a transcendent, omnipresent intelligence of some kind which does not require any physicality in order to exist and excercise creative power."

I say that yes, the buck does have to stop somewhere. But why at a deity? Why not a transcendent, eternal "object" of some kind which does not require any physicality in order to exist and generate universes? Why not take your proposed deity and just remove the conciousness, make it like a machine that does things without thinking?

Favorite Books

Ravi Zacharias: Can Man Live Without God?An amazing book that makes the case for God not by citing the Bible or great theologians, but by analyzing the philosophies of famous atheists and showing their flaws.

C. S. Lewis: Mere ChristianityC.S. Lewis was an atheist for much of his life. Appropriately, this book makes the case for the existance of God first and Christianity second with carefully outlined and surprisingly simple reasoning. I consider this required reading for anyone searching for meaning.

C. S. Lewis: Space TrilogyReligious Sci-Fi Fantasy: A very tiny genre. In "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hiddeous Strength", C.S. Lewis manages to tackle difficult theological questions as we follow Dr. Ransom in his adventures on Mars, Venus, and back on Earth. My favorite science fiction series by far.